Salena Knight 0:01
Hey there and welcome to the bringing business to retail podcast. If you're looking to get more sales, more customers, master your marketing and ultimately take control of your retail or E commerce business, then you're in the right place. I'm Selena Knight, a retail growth strategist and multi award winning store owner whose superpower is uncovering exactly what your business requires to move to the next level. I'll provide you with the strategies, the tools and the insight you need to scale your store. All you need to do is take action. Ready to get started.

Salena Knight 0:47
You know, I've always prided myself on being someone who gets stuff done quickly, because people who talk slow annoy me, people who walk slow frustrate me, and even my old tea kettle, which used to take several minutes to boil water, used to make me irrationally angry. I'm the type of person who wakes up early because sleeping in feels like I'm losing precious time. If it's 7am and I'm still in bed, I've already lost at least an hour of my day, if not two, and that is how I have always operated. But here's where I want to start today. This need to move fast, to check things off my to do list has always been both my superpower and my kryptonite. For the longest time, my mantra was done is better than perfect, and I lived by it, and in my 15 years in business, I surrounded myself with people who shared that mentality. My team and I could put together a product launch in a week where other businesses might take four months. Now, we weren't sloppy, we just thrived on tight deadlines and flying by the seat of our pants, and it worked. We were agile and quick to respond to hiccups and able to adapt when things didn't always go as planned, but as I've learned, what got us here won't get us there. And here's the thing, I thought we already had great systems in place in our business. I mean, we aren't amateurs. I've been teaching people to build systems and processes for years inside of our business, our processes, our tools, our way of doing things, had been working for years, but when I joined a mastermind last year, my eyes were opened up to what scaling to the next level really requires. And if you've been listening to the podcast, you'll know I've talked quite a bit about joining this mastermind, because the reality is, joining this mastermind has been both a blessing and a curse, a blessing because it is helping me grow my business, but a curse because there are times when I feel very inadequate, because up until that point of joining the mastermind, I didn't know any better, because I'd never seen the inside workings of a business like mine that had already made it to the next milestone that I'm heading toward. The systems that they had, they weren't just good, they were next level. And it was really humbling for me to realize that while I running what I thought was a pretty well oiled machine, the reality was, if I was going to the next level, which I am, what we had was more like a patched up engine that was barely holding together, and that realization has kicked off months of overhauling, and I've been walking you through this process on the podcast, because the fact is, it hasn't been pretty. And if you want to hear how it really almost imploded this business, just go back a few episodes and listen in to that episode. I think it's called something like, putting systems in place might kill your business, and I'll link it to it in the show notes. Coming into 2025 the team and I were prepping for the launch of our new accelerator program, and I was getting really frustrated because I would check in on our project management systems multiple times a day, and see that there were crucial tasks still not getting ticked off, and just like the tea kettle, just like people walking slow, just like people talking slow, the annoyance that was building inside of me was growing by the hour, all I could Think was, we are on a deadline. People like, what the freaking heck are you doing? But I'm growing as a leader. And so I turned to my mastermind for help, and said, What can I do? And I received a really interesting piece of advice, so much so that I moved the podcast I was going to do for today, and I put it in here because this is something that already, in two days, has made a huge change in our business. So one of the mastermind members said to me, and I'll admit, when she said it, I immediately went. My first thoughts were micro manager March. But the simple fact is, this lady. Is smart with a capital S, and she further along in business than I am. And so I thought, screw it. Let's give it a try. I started with our marketing coordinator, quite simply, because he was the next person that I had a meeting with, and I asked him to map out his week, to break it down to the hour with deliverables like literally broken down 8am to 10am finalize the new create your marketing budget action plan for the accelerator, and one to 145 write the podcast show notes. And as I reviewed it, I realized that the things I realized a couple of things, one the things that he thought were a priority didn't always line up with the things that I thought were a priority. Hmm. Now remember, we use project management software, and there are deadlines on everything. But my team get to choose what they work on on a day to day basis, as long as the deadlines are met. But I was able to look at his week and swap out some of the tasks that were less pressing for me, for ones that were needed sooner, the things that were making me happier once they were completed. Remember, I'm the one who runs the show. I'm the person who is reflected in everything that goes out. And so if I'm being held up by other people, and they may not even know it, then that frustration just derails my working gate. Now I was so impressed that I sat down and did the same thing the same afternoon, because right now I have a lot on my plate, and as we go into the launch of the Scalia store 12 week accelerator, there are final edits I have to review, there are social media clips that I have to finish filming, there are emails I have to sign off on, there are podcasts that I have to write and record. And so I thought, just because I'm the boss, it doesn't mean I get a free pass. And so I sat down and I mapped out my week, hour by hour, and like a slap in the face, boom, a reality check. I want to just play you a little bit of a snippet of the onboarding call I had when I joined this mastermind. So I had an onboarding call with my mentor, Jasmine star, and I want to play you a snippet, because this is

Speaker 1 7:17
crucial. What does Selena want, and what does she need, and what at the end of our time together will make you say this was, this was a really great thing. So as I was reviewing the onboarding I'm going to go through, and I got to the end, and it said, to the end of pretend it's May 2025, and you're reflecting on this mastermind. You're amazing. All of you to accomplish, list out specifically what you have accomplished and how it makes you feel. And so there was about, I think, 10 or 12 that you wanted to and I love it all. And here's the thing Seth, here's the thing. I know you would not write that if you did not believe that you can make it happen. So nobody doubts that. However, in terms of getting support in the most leveraged way from the group I would like us to prioritize. I want

Salena Knight 8:07
this mastermind to be more about getting me to where I want to be quicker than if I was just doing it myself. Now, the backstory to that was that I had to fill in an onboarding document coming into the mastermind, which asked me all the things that I wanted to achieve in eight months, and I listed out 10 things that I wanted to get done in eight months, because the reality was I could build an entire new business in eight months. Remember, people who walk slow frustrate me, people who talk slow annoy me, but we are five months in, and I can, hand on heart, tell you that only one of those things is on its way to being finalized by May 2025. I'm here to say my name is Selena Knight, and I am a chronic underestimator of how long things will take. When I mapped out my week, hour by hour, I realized that there was simply not enough hours in my waking, waking day to do it all. Well, that's the key word, proving email content. I thought would take me 30 minutes, but it took me 45 reviewing edits. It took double the time that I thought and here's the kicker, I have always been my hardest critic, my Inner Mean Girl loves to tell me that I should be able to handle it all, but mapping out my time showed me that I was trying to fit 50 hours worth of tasks into a 38 hour week. So It was no wonder that I was constantly feeling like I was behind. And this is where the biggest lesson for me in growing my business came in. Scaling isn't about being the fastest or even the smartest person in the room. The number one trait that you need to scale is patience. Because here's the thing, perhaps the number. One mistake that I've made in all of my years of business is not realizing that everything that you do to scale takes way longer than you expected it to, and so the number one trait you need to scale is patience. Patience to map out your time. Patience to build systems that don't just work now, but will still work when your business is double or triple its current size. Patience to number one, do the work and number two, stick with something long enough to see it through, because things always take longer than you expect. Now, let me clarify. Patience does not mean sitting around twiddling your thumbs and waiting for success to magically appear. It means having the plan, having the systems and having the discipline to keep moving forward even when progress feels slow. In fact, even when progress feels like you are going backwards. It is the difference between rushing to get something done, building something that lasts, a scalable, profitable asset. I know first hand, many businesses fail because the founder, who is the driving force behind the business, lacks the patience to see their own strategies through, or allowing others the time to do their job. Well, not everyone works as fast as I do. When founders expect immediate results and when they don't see them, they pivot too quickly, or some of them just abandon the ship altogether, or they just blame everything and everyone, because it is easier to blame external influences, then accept that you're the problem, right? And so this constant juggle, to move fast, but to have patience. It is a juggle. I want to move fast. I do move fast, but I have to have patience to know that things take time. Everything takes so much longer than you expect, to know what to work on and when and to wait for results. It's about building systems and habits and the mindset that allow you to scale sustainably. And that was one of the key components that I took into account when I was building the scale your store accelerator, having that structured weekly planning to help you stay focused and to map out your week so that you have dedicated time to implement strategies without getting distracted. The thing was, I was building this for you, but I wasn't building it for myself. Of course, that's changed now, because when you have the plan, when you have it mapped out, it allows you to stay focused on what truly matters, which in turn, means you make consistent progress without feeling like you're overwhelmed. Now, whilst the accelerator can be used by any retail or E commerce, but business, I refined down what's inside of it to be for those businesses who are focusing on scaling to $50,000 a month. I spent months talking with you all, hearing what your biggest obstacles are, and I've tried to cover off as many of those as I can so that you can get results, but you still need the patience. The accelerators is designed to help you fix the problems that are currently holding your store back so you can scale to consistent 50k months. And if that's you, and you would like to wake up to consistent sales, and not just good months and terrible months, but steady growth month after month. And if you want to stop hustling every single customer and instead build systems that turn one time buyers into loyal super fans, and predict your revenue every month, instead of just crossing your fingers and hoping, turning your browsers into buyers and one time customers into loyal, repeat shoppers, so you are not having to work so hard to drive more people In the door or more people to your website, having that clear roadmap to take your store from where it is now to 50k months and beyond, but most importantly, being able to lead your business like a CEO and focus on the things that drive growth, not the things that drain your time and your energy. If that's you, then this program could be the breakthrough that you've been looking for. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress, applications for the accelerator are now open. Yes, that's what I said. You will have to apply to join the program, because if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme or a magic button that transforms your store overnight, this is not it. You can find the application form at Selena knight.com forward slash accelerator. And of course, I'm going to pop the link in the show notes. And if you're the right fit, I would love for you to come and join us and take that note. Next step towards building your business and building a life that you love and you enjoy, and you want to wake up to and and jump in and get your hands dirty, because business is fun again. You can do that at Selena knight.com, forward slash accelerator, pop in your application form. We'll jump on a call with you, because the simple fact is, if you are not right fit, we don't want to take your money. We do not want you to be investing in yet another program that doesn't help but if it is right for you, we'll tell you all about it until next time. Remember, scaling is not about speed. It is not about being the smartest in the room. It's all about patience. So that's a wrap. I'd love to hear what insight you've gotten from this episode and how you're going to put it into action. If you're a social kind of person, follow me at the Selena Knight and make sure to leave a comment and let me know. And if this episode made you think a little bit differently, or gave you some inspiration, or perhaps gave you the kick that you needed to take action, then please take a couple of minutes to leave me a review on your platform of choice, because the more reviews the show gets, the more independent retail and E commerce stores just like yours, that we can help to scale, and when that happens, it's a win for you, a win for your community and a win for your customers. I'll see you on the next episode.